Glasgow Hydro got Bizkit’d earlier this month and we were there to enjoy every minute.
Picture the scene if you will. Out the back of a sweaty, packed metal venue and System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, and Gojira are having an almighty tear up. A chaotic, sweaty, riff-fuelled rager in a back alley. And just when you thought it was over, they grabbed a meaty, bone rattling chorus, smacked you in the chops, and threw you into the pit. That’s 'Nu Delhi', the second album from India’s loudest, proudest, and most unapologetically ambitious metal export, Bloodywood.
If you ever needed proof that the ‘80s never truly died, 'Thrill of the Bite' is the irrefutable, iron-clad, smoking-gun evidence, swaggering into 2025 with more leather, hairspray, and fist-pumping bravado than Motley Crue on the Sunset Strip in their pomp.
Lacuna Coil’s new album, 'Sleepless Empire', isn’t just another chapter in their ever-impressive catalogue - it’s a bold statement of intent. Their tenth studio album dropped earlier this month and saw the Italian icons embracing their gothic roots, while fearlessly pushing their sound into unexplored sonic spectrums.
From the depths of the South London alt-rock underground a band has emerged who aren’t here just to play nice or make up the numbers. They’re here to drag you into their world of suffocating atmosphere, raw emotion, and rock n’ roll devastation. Their sophomore EP, 'Elements', is an emotional rollercoaster through the chaos of the human condition, an unrelenting dive into the depths of inner turmoil, wrapped in a package of searing alt-rock grit.
By the time we meet Kelsy Karter & The Heroines backstage at Download, not only are the gang still in
Michael Poulsen is no stranger to playing at Download. The main man, front and centre, of Danish metal gods Volbeat, has played so often on the hallowed Donington turf he could probably be liable for council tax. But this year. This time. In the mud filled carnage of 2024, Poulson is right of centre and as happy as a pig in mud, as the guitarist and UK live festival debut of Asinhell.
"I've found a reason for me, To change who I used to be, A reason to start over new, And the reason is you!" Some of the most well known rock ballad lyrics in the world and a track which burst through the one billion stream mark in the run up to Download. Hoobastank’s The Reason is the soundtrack to so many of our lives and as frontman Doug Robb laughs, it got so many people laid through the years - including himself.
Will Ghould and Ian Miles are enjoying a well earned seat backstage at Download. Both their shoes are caked in thick, gluey mud. But the boys can’t stop grinning. For the third year in a row Creeper have smashed an unmissable set right out of the Donington Park, moving up the stages each year with their Main Stage set fresh in the hearts, minds and ears of 70,000 festival revellers. Very few bands are invited back for a hat-trick of consecutive appearances so have Creeper become the Download house band?
Liquid Death Presents Download Festival might have been one of the wettest on record but that didn't dampen anyone's spirits.